THE LATEST

Toy Art Gallery is excited to announce our first Anniversary at our Melrose location! To mark the occasion, we’ve invited over 50 of our favorite artists and friends to join us in celebration. Come out to our celebration on Saturday, September 15th and be the first to have access to exclusive editions, one-of-a-kind custom toys and works of art, limited edition apparel, and more!

Please join us and many of the featured artists on Saturday, September 15th from 7-10pm at Toy Art Gallery’s showroom located at 7571 Melrose Ave. Hollywood CA 90046. Enjoy drinks, cake, music by Dirty Waters, special discounts on select product, and more! The Gravy Train Food Truck will be on hand to provide tasty treats starting at 6PM. ‘TOY ART GALLERY Anniversary Show 2012’ runs through October 8th.

ATTENTION: If you plan on purchasing exclusive items from the show (custom and limited edition toys) you must have a line ticket. Line tickets will be passed out starting at 12PM Noon on Saturday. Ticket numbers will be random, so no need to wait in line! Just show up at 12 to get your ticket and make sure you’re back at the gallery at 6PM to ensure your proper place in line.

Originating in its birthplace of Hong Kong in 2000 with stops in London, Paris, Sofia and Varna, mr clement, Petit Lapin, Ji Ja bird and their friends finally cross the Pacific as the World Tour makes it way to L.A. Represented in sculptures, figures, paintings and drawings and more, the troupe is ready to make their U.S. debut.

Statement from the artist:
As Petit Lapin travels, it meets new friends, falls in love; generally it enjoys life but occasionally its heart gets broken. Life moves on, petit lapin, you and me – we all grow older every second as we breath. I suppose that’s what my work is about: the paradox of the past and present, and change.

My new paintings draw upon blurred memories. The hazy content is marked by clear lines and framed by a clear-cut round form. We think we are sure of our memory but are we?

The lapin sculptures tell their stories through small gestures and expressions. The hollow eyes take you to the heart of loneliness and pain whereas the slightly turned body tells you lapin is in anticipation of something, or maybe someone.

I try to focus multiple complex and unique human emotions to one single frozen movement, I create a moment of reflection so we can see life as it passes by. It’s all about subtle sensitivity when we experience joy and pain.

About mr clement:Born in Hong Kong, lives in England and graduated in Royal College of Art London.
‘mr clement’ is the artistic pseudonym for my work as an painter and a sculptor.

The preview for Arkiv’s “THE AFTERMATH” is now available for viewing. Starting Saturday, August 4th at 12 PM PST, email info@toyartgallery.com with your name, Paypal email, location and request. Work will be sold first come, first served. Please include your full name and mailing address with email. If you wish to pay by another method, please indicate so in your email.

Toy Art Gallery is proud to present “THE AFTERMATH – A Journey to Wounderland” by Arkiv Vilmansa. THE AFTERMATH is Arkiv’s second solo exhibition at Toy Art Gallery and the first in our new location. While Arkiv’s familiar bold lines and bright colors are still present in these new works, a juxtaposition of darkness adds a refreshing contrast and marks a new direction in his work. THE AFTERMATH features new painted works, limited edition prints and t-shirts, custom VANS shoes, the debut of the lifesize LIBERTINE fiberglass figure, and more!

From the artist:
“Wounderland is an ecosystem formed in the disastrous aftermath of a world that had suffered for far too long from global warming. Here, a new animal kingdom was born, in which new DNA configurations appear, creating wild new breeds that were previously unimaginable. The mass disaster that took place for only seventeen seconds happened with such force that it completely scorched the earth. Darkness enveloped the earth, and for a while, it is as if every being in it was soundly asleep. No light could be found here, and only the single moon was keeping it illuminated.

All flora and fauna have transformed and morphed to adapt to this new environment. Plants and vegetation are now creatures with flesh and blood, with a skeletal anatomy, hairy surfaces, and throbbing pulses. Sharks fly across the air and take their prey both in land and in the depths of the sea. In this new natural habitat, the lion’s seat as the king of the wilderness has been replaced by various new species of birds, who now outnumber the category of any other living being. Plants and animals live together side by side in a mutual symbiosis. Mammals, birds, insects, fish, amphibians – they crossbreed in a large scale, creating unexpected new life forms as an effect.

“Wounderland” is a world presented by Arkiv Vilmansa, where the boundaries between the real and the imaginary break down. Through the works in his exhibitions he invites us to explore this world, beginning from his first solo show in Jakarta, Indonesia entitled “Reachable Distance”. In that exhibition, we were already able to observe his experimentations with whimsical, cartoon-like figures, inviting us to further imagine the kind of world they inhabit with their bright colours and bold lines. “The Aftermath” is a continuation of this exploration, showing even more confidence and gusto. Where previously solid colours dominate his palette, in this current collection darker tones become the background against which each of the characters are set. These nocturnal shades represent the bleakness of “Wounderland” in the aftermath of a great disaster, yet the striking colours of the figures no doubt display an unrelentless sense of optimism. All of these, no doubt, create an even richer visual experience.

Another significant exploration that are visible in the works in this exhibition is the move towards colour
gradients. With each tonal shift still in the same hue, it is as if Vilmansa wishes to examine and dig deeper
into the emotional, personal complexities that they may represent. We should not be surprised if the play with gradients will soon become Vilmansa’s main artistic distinction. In fact, why should we, for these gradients illustrate the entwinement between the real and the imaginary in the habitat we now know as “Wounderland”, in a way that may not be achieved otherwise.”

Please join us for the opening on Saturday, Augst 4th from 7-10 PM at Toy Art Gallery’s new showroom located at 7571 Melrose Ave. Hollywood CA 90046. Arkiv will be in attendance and will unveil his LIBERTINE life-size fiberglass figure! “THE AFTERMATH” runs through August 22nd.

SECRET BASE “Japanese Devil” is shaping up to be an amazing show and we just had to share a few samples with you! Keep in mind that this is just a fraction of the awesome works that will be available, so make sure you’re at TAG this Saturday July 7th to see the show in it’s entirety and to get first pick! Works will be available first come, first served and line tickets will be given out starting at 12 PM noon on Saturday.

Toy Art Gallery is proud to present “TRANSMUTATION” a two-week engagement featuring the work of Portland, Oregon artist Meredith Dittmar. The work is characterized by exquisite human-animal-plant-energy hybrids that contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union between consciousness, biology, and technology.

“TRANSMUTATION” sees a resurgence of Meredith’s “My Guys”, fanciful, thoughtful characters in beautiful colors and shapes, each 100% handmade from polymer clay. Also showcased are her abstractly and geometrically detailed clay reliefs, each presented in a wall-mountable lightbox . Every work is one-of-a-kind and unique, and priced to satisfy all budgets.

Says Meredith:
I first touched polymer clay 18 years ago, and very rapidly after, I began
to create characters. A constant stream of unique faces numbering in the
thousands have emerged from my fingertips. They gave my busy hands a job and
brought me many varied commercial opportunities, but more importantly,
guided me towards art and the realization that I am an artist for the long
haul. Over the years the characters varied quite a bit in subject, size,
and realism; and more recently, have left my work almost entirely.
Throughout this transition I have frequently reflected on what this natural
departure of the character might signify in the context of my life and work.
Why get rid of them? They were, after all, what I built my career on. I
kept hearing how much people really connected to the expressions, in
particular the eyes. But I began to feel like, just maybe, they mistakenly
thought they loved the character and its eyes, but what they really loved
was what was coming through its eyes. I’ve been driven to find out just
what is coming through the eyes that people connect with so greatly, and
that exploration had been the basis of my artwork ever since. Using the
strongest character at my disposal (myself) I began to look deeper and
deeper. Shockingly- the attachment to the concept of MY character seemed to
be the very thing getting in the way. So it began, somewhat against my
choice, the systematic stripping away of the character. observing it,
splitting it and looking behind it, until there was no thing and no one
left. Working on this show allowed me to revisit character work as the
plain ole’ fun and free activity it is, and has always been for me. While
at the same time, I got to continue to dig under the story of the
transmutation of my own “character”. The result is a merger of the two
practices, arriving at a recognition of the underlying truth of both as the
same.

Please join us for the opening on Saturday, June 16th from 7-10 PM at Toy Art Gallery’s new showroom located at 7571 Melrose Ave. Hollywood CA 90046. “TRANSMUTATION” runs through June 30th.